Adventures
by blank-fic
Summary: For my kink bingo "sensation play" square. Amita & Ian, written as asexual and aromantic Amita developing a friendship with Ian.
1. Chapter 1

Ian asks Amita to dinner after they finish a case in which she had consulted. Against her better judgment, Amita doesn't say no. However, she does put a restriction on her acceptance, even though she knows Ian probably doesn't and wont get it yet. "I'd love to eat with you, Agent Edgerton, but I should warn you that I don't date people."

Ian doesn't let himself smirk and he nods in agreement to her terms, so Amita decides that it might very well be worth going. Ian tells her the time and place, and she types up a little note on her computerized calendar to remind herself to show up.

That evening, she changes into a soft blue wrap dress that feels like a bath robe she just threw on, but looks like a reasonably planned outfit, pairing it with a black pair of ballet flats. Just because this isn't a date, doesn't mean she can't look attractive- if not for Ian's sake, then for her own sake.

–

Ian ends up staring at her in appreciation anyways, as she slides into her side of the booth and is handed the menu. The restaurant is small, and the menu is cheap, and Amita appreciates that he didn't go out of his way to impress her with an overcrowded "date spot."

Amita orders the BBQ chicken sandwich. Ian orders the roast beef with fries. They wait for their food to arrive as they sip their respective plastic cups of coke.

Ian asks about her recent work, but Amita can see his eyes begin to gloss over as she talks about modeling dispersion. Finally, she simplifies her speech. "I haven't had much to do since Charlie left. I realize now that so much of my work was tangled into his that I never really developed my own interests. The idea that I might not be an applied mathematician scares me to death, but its one I've been considering more and more as of late. Its like.. I never developed a self independent of the goal to get married. Or my parent's goal to get me married, anyways."

Ian laughs. "I joined the army at 17, and they give you an identity with your pathetic paychecks. I didn't think I'd end up where I am now, Amita, I was just too good to say no."

"And what're you doing with all the freedom to exercise judgment they're giving you now?"

Ian shrugs. "Being the person I'm supposed to be according to other people's standards. Much like you were before you left that boy your parents arranged for you and then Charlie in remarkably short order. You've dated a lot of people for someone who doesn't date."

"There's a lot of things I'm not sure about wanting, Ian, but there's plenty of things I'm learning I don't like at all. I was absolutely in love with the idea of loving Charlie, but an idea is simply not enough. Telling yourself to be tolerant is simply not enough, if the fact that Charlie is in England right now is any evidence. I loved the idea of it being my choice, but dumping Charlie gave me a lot of time to reflect. That was the only thing I loved, Ian."

The food arrives, but Ian ignores his sandwich as he stares at her. "So why'd you say yes?"

"Because I need friends, Ian. Nothing but. I want adventures, all the ones I've missed out on locked inside the four walls of my office being my parent's daughter."

Ian nods. "So we'll have adventures."

They eat their meal, and that's all it is, but that's all they want and it is good.


	2. Chapter 2

It's been over a month since they last saw each other when he next arrives in her office, unannounced and uninvited, but not unwelcome.

"Still working?" Ian asks, when she looks up from a mountain of paperwork to curiously stare at him.

"Yes. I'm going to finish out the school year at least before... well, I don't really know what comes next. Before the future, I suppose." Amita answers, looking more tired than Ian has seen her in quite a while.

"How long until the year finishes up?"

"Three weeks."

"And your citizenship went through?"

"Of course."

"Would you like to go on an adventure, Amita?"

"For how long?"

"I don't know, for the summer?"

Amita stares at him for a long time, because she doesn't know the answer. But the spark of arousal at the thought of leaving her office tells her enough. "I think I might love to."

Ian smiles. "I'll see you in three weeks. Pack for all climates."

–

Ian's boss' jaw goes slack when Ian finally decides to turn in his months worth of paid time off. "Where will you go?" his boss asks.

"I'm not sure, yet."

"You know you'll have to justify every nod and turn at re-clearance anyways."

"Yes. But that'll be after I've done it, and that isn't for another year."

"And if I decided to tell them you were in the woods in California the entire time?"

"That would be an excellent idea, sir."

"Use your second passport, Ian."

"Of course."

–

Amita administers finals, fields angry parents, and goes home and packs two bags with clothing for all sorts of weather, along with her laptop, camera, and cell phone.

–

The day of their departure, Ian calls her at five in the morning and tells her to dress for warm weather. Ian arrives at her apartment just before six, and its not quite light out yet, but he looks like he's been awake for hours.

"Where are we going?"

"Reno. While I'd normally advocate the driving route to get there, we need to make up time if we're going to do everything this summer has planned for us. We're flying out at 10, don't ask how I got your birthdate to book your ticket."

Amita looks at Ian skeptically. "What does the summer have planned for us now, Ian, in Reno of all places?"

"We'll take a shuttle from there up to the Tahoe rim trail, and spend two weeks backpacking the trail."

Amita's eyes light up. "So we'll have adventures."

"We sure will." Ian says, thinking of the fact that Amita has probably not backpacked a day in her life and will likely struggle making up the nearly 12 miles a day they'll need to travel in order to finish the trail during the 14 day period their permit allots. "Since you don't have camping gear, we'll pick what I don't have for you up in Reno. Bring a good pair of your sneakers."

Amita cringes. "I can't say that idea appeals to me. What should I do with my luggage? You told me to pack for everything, I'm sure there's quite a few things I don't need in it. I strongly suspect I wont be wearing dresses, at the very least."

Ian smiles. "You'll leave them with me, and we'll take a taxi from my house to the airport since I'm closest. If we need to get them after Tahoe, I'll have them shipped to where we end up going. I don't want you setting foot in this town again until at least the end of summer. But first, I'll need to sort through your clothing to find anything that might be useful."

When they're done with that, Ian loads Amita's two bags into his car, an old Honda that Amita's pretty sure that he never uses in between adventuring around the country with company cars, and they drive to his apartment. It is, unsurprisingly, in a high rise building.

"Didn't know you could afford this on the government dime, Ian." Amita says.

"You can when work's all you do. I've been saving nearly every penny I've made for the past two decades. It wasn't as expensive as you'd think, too many people who bought their properties half a decade ago had to sell for half of what they're worth."

"Taking advantage of other people's misfortune?"

"No, taking advantage of other people's inability to plan ahead and think for themselves."

The taxi arrives shortly thereafter, and Amita departs with the few pieces of clothing Ian approved, along with her basic toiletries, stuffed into the backpack he gave her.

–

At LAX, they both use their green stripes to check in at the counter and to get through airport security, because it rather disappointingly is the only way to get treated as something more than common scum. Ian gives Amita a funny look when they pass by the signs for patdowns and nude-o-scopes, and she's pretty sure the thought he's trying to convey is "not in my country."

But they cant change policies and they can't change politics, and they make it through to their gate with a minimum of fuss.

When the plane takes off on their adventure, largely unplanned and unscripted at least to Amita, she thinks that she's missed out on far too much adventure in life. That she's missed out on feeling things, feeling alive. She stares out the window and feels more of a rush there than she ever did staring at Charlie, or staring at a problem she knows how to solve.

So she'll have adventures.


	3. Chapter 3

They arrive at their hotel just after one, and Ian looks up the directions to the nearest sporting goods store in the business lounge of the hotel the moment they check in. "Three miles." he declares, and Amita cringes when she realizes he intends to walk there and back.

Ian gives her a funny look. "We're going to be walking a dozen miles a day out in the middle of nowhere, and you're worried about walking a six mile roundtrip to buy supplies?"

Amita laughs when he puts it like that. "Yeah, I guess I'm not used to spending a lot of time outside."

"You're going to have to start learning now. If I have to carry you, I will kill you. If you die, I will kill you again."

"You don't have your beloved gun to do that with, Ian." Amita smirks.

"Who said I needed one?"

"I promise not to die, Ian. Now lets get going before I even think about getting comfortable at any time during this trip."

–

Amita needs a sleeping bag and sleeping pad, so when they arrive at the store, Ian sets himself to the task of finding the lightest weight ones he can find, considering if he can just give her his sleeping pad for the sake of keeping their load as light as possible. In the end, he compromises by giving her his own, and buying a much lighter (and as a consequence, considerably more expensive) version for himself.

Amita stares at the sleeping bag. "Why not just bring a really light blanket? That doesn't look like it'll do much."

"Trust me, it will. There still might be snow on parts of the trail this time of year, and you don't want to be caught without a good sleeping bag. This will get you through some pretty nasty winds and cold, even if it doesn't look like much."

He coaches Amita through buying socks, two shirts (one for hiking, one cotton), a pair of shorts and pants, three pairs of socks, a jacket, and underwear, and restocks his supply of odor-proof bags.

When the tent situation comes up, Ian says "I have two solo tents. If you want to sleep in the same space, we can get a tarp and mosquito netting."

"I think solo tents will be fine, Ian."

After Amita buys her share of the supplies, cringing at the total and only imagining how much Ian has spent on the rest of the gear- including the backpack clearly purchased to fit her- they head back to their hotel, stopping at a grocery store along the way.

Ian picks out a few items to restock his first aid kit, getting a second bottle of iodine to make drinking water for Amita in case anything happens to his first. They pick up trail mix, a handful of energy bars, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of flour tortillas, a box of pop tarts, ramen, cream of rice cereal, several bags of pouch tuna, and nabbed packets of mayo and relish.

Amita gives Ian a funny look about the food, but he just shrugs. "We'll be able to stop and pick up more food about four days in. This is plenty enough until then, and we'll be carrying four pounds of water a piece to break our backs."

Amita groans, but Ian smirks, because he knows his packs will easily come up under 20 pounds despite having thrown them together literally in a few days.

They return to the hotel to relax for the day and sleep, and Amita falls asleep thinking of two weeks of relative isolation and adventures.


	4. Chapter 4

They leave Reno first thing in the morning on a shuttle, and get dropped off a few miles down the road from their trail head. Ian double checks both their packs to make sure they have everything they need, and they set off down the road, Amita already wide-eyed at the wonder of being simply -away- from LA and everything about it. They stop for lunch in town before making it to the trail head, and Amita jokes that this is their last meal.

They pass a lot of tourists at the trail head, but the number of hikers gets less and less dense as they walk on through the day. Ian walks slowly, letting Amita get accustomed to long walks on odd terrain, even though this is one of the easier trails he's ever walked on.

Amita soaks in the scenery, green for miles around, the promise of the lake around every bend and turn. Her feet start to ache around the fourth mile, and Ian gives her an ibuprofen and promises that it'll get better. She'll be in much better shape by the time they're back to where they started, at least.

They make it seven or so miles in before Amita calls it a day, because they're at a clearing with a view of the water that is just too beautiful to pass by and its already four pm and Amita has her kindle and wants to read and relax here. Ian doesn't complain, because it is a reasonably safe and high traffic spot.

Ian teaches Amita how to set up her tent, angling it so that the open mesh side of the tent forms a V with his own. They can get in and out, but have a safe view of each other.

Amita reads for hours, until the sun goes down and she can read her kindle's screen no longer, and Ian stares at her all the while. They eat a dinner of peanut butter and honey on tortilla bread, which produces only two packets of honey worth of waste for the canister Amita's carrying, their waste canister. Most of their food remains in Ian's pack.

In the darkness, they spend a few hours outside their tent gazing up at the stars, and although civilization is only miles away, they feel like they're the only ones out there. Amita never wants this to end.

Amita tells him about the obnoxious city lights drowning everything out "back home", and how she can't imagine ever going back there. She tells him about Charlie in England with a woman who loves him, Larry off reproducing with Megan, and Millie increasing her responsibility at work all the time, as though to tell her that she can't remain a postgrad forever.

Amita tells him that she thinks she can't go back to the city again, and he listens and understands.


	5. Chapter 5

They make it past Spooner Summit the second day, passing a new wave of tourists and bikers along the way, and after detouring a mile and a half round trip up to a particularly high viewing point (at which Amita says "oh" and spends an hour staring out at), and then again detouring to a stream to collect cooking water without risking their considerably less dirty clean water supply, they end up having walked 16 miles that day. Ian had preemptively given her ibuprofen as they started out the morning, but by the time they're setting up camp again, Amita is sore everywhere, and spends minutes fiddling with her blisters before Ian gives in and helps her properly bandage them up.

Ian cooks a dinner of cream of rice and honey, and Amita downs a packet of tuna with relish and mayo mixed in before he manages to finish. The wasted pouches go into Amita's canister, and they settle around the small can stove to eat their dinner.

Ian thinks that this is what friendship is supposed to feel like for him when he holds her hand for just a moment, and she doesn't let go.

The wind whistles above Amita's head in the night, and Amita thinks that this is how people feel when they talk about love and sex and excitement, and that she understands.

–

They make their first dumping and refueling stop a day later, and hit their first twenty mile day a day after that. They walk over a long open field on a wooden boardwalk, and Amita thinks that it is absolutely magical that something like this exists in the world, a little sidewalk in the middle of a large heaven. The wood creaks under her feet with every step she takes, and various streams ripple in the wind as they walk down the track.

They eat tuna again for dinner that night, and Ian decides to make conversation by talking about some of his past hiking adventures. Many of them involved hunting bad guys, but Amita isn't surprised to hear he's done this for fun before.

Again, Ian holds her hand. Amita asks him why.

Ian stares at the stars, brilliantly clear above them so far away from the city lights. "I want you to feel things, more than you're feeling, everything. I want to show you so much more of the world, so much more sensation, and I'm learning every day that you want this too."

"No expectations?" Amita asks.

Ian chuckles. "No expectations. Only adventures, Amita."

Amita asks to sleep in his overly cramped tent that night, and decides that she likes the way another human feels.

The revelation startles her, because she'd never noticed Charlie's breathing when they were in bed together, only his expectations and her anxiety to perform. She'd never noticed how wonderfully smooth skin can be, or how calm even the most alert person can be in their sleep. If she's honest with herself, she'd never felt safe sleeping next to another adult before, because it has always meant something in her past.

That, she tells herself, is the past she is leaving behind. Tonight, she curls herself into him and sleeps with the wind whistling above her head and his soft breaths tickling her scalp.


	6. Chapter 6

Ian laughs as Amita insists on wearing a pair of underwear and her tshirt into the lake two afternoons later, neglecting to point out that they'll obviously become transparent the moment she dives into the water. The water is blindingly cold when she first jumps in, and Amita thinks of the first time her parents stared at her math homework in high school and declared that she'd make a fine mathematician, and tells herself to rinse that moment away in all the water constantly flowing around her.

They spend a lazy afternoon swimming in the water and relaxing on the shore, and Amita giggles like a child every time Ian splashes her with the cold lake water.

"You're acting like you've never seen water before." Ian says as a passing joke.

"I swim in the pool in my apartment complex, I guess. I've never had the time to go out to the beach yet."

"You live in California and you're telling me you've never seen the ocean?"

Amita nods, bobbing lazily in the water.

"We'll have to fix that one day."

"One day." Amita says, and she doesn't want to think about ever leaving this world, about ever going back to the cars and the tiredness and the students awaiting her in California.

Ian watches her. "Have you thought about what you want to do, after this summer?"

Amita nods again. "I have, but I'm not sure yet. In a month or two, I think I'll have the confidence to know... but now, here, I can't make that choice."

Ian doesn't understand, but he swims up to her and drips small handfuls of water on her face, and Amita closes her eyes and lets him help keep her afloat.

They share half a jar of trail mix for lunch, and drink treated lake water straight because Amita wants to know what it tastes like.

That evening, they only set up one tent yet again, hanging their food canisters far away from their campsite and getting in to bed just before dark. Amita whispers to Ian, not sure that she can bring herself to loudly speak her words even out here in the great nowhere.

"I want to try a different feeling." She says, and Ian smiles at her growing confidence.

"Anything, Amita." Ian answers, and he's pretty sure he means it.

"I want to feel the cold rocks we're sleeping on beneath us. This is weird, I know. I want... I don't know why, Ian, but I want you to push me into them. To feel them in full force, and to feel you."

Ian doesn't think that's weird at all. "Up." he orders, and Amita crams herself into the already cramped space just next to the sleeping bag and sleeping pad. Ian rolls them both away.

He doesn't have to say the next order in his mind before Amita is stripping down to her panties, and he looks away so as to not see her breasts as she settles herself down onto the cold hard surface.

Ian starts with her calves, massaging the back of them like they aren't out in the wilderness on a bed of hard rocks. Amita almost screams in pain when the cold rocks jam onto her barely protected tibiae.

"Do you want me to stop?" Ian asks, concerned.

Amita lifts her head and sharply shakes it, exhaling a no breathlessly. "More." she demands, and Ian complies.

He uses her knees as a grabbing point to scrape her thighs back and forth across the rough surface. She digs her fingers into the tarp beneath them. He uses his own weight to grind her hip bones into the ground, and she closes her eyes and evens her breathing but not before he notices, reaches one hand to her face and feels her tears, and shortly declares "don't stop."

Ian doesn't. He spends an hour kneading her body to the point of exhaustion. "We'll need to stay here tomorrow." Ian declares, as he works.

Amita just moans in response, and Ian takes it to mean "shut up and keep working."

That night, it isn't too cold, so he puts her clothes back on and has her sleep on an opened half of a sleeping bad, with no sleeping pad under her.

It takes her a few minutes to find a position that isn't entirely excruciating, but she falls asleep just like that.

–

They have a breakfast of cream of rice cereal with honey and milk powder as the sun rises, and Ian can see the bruises and scrapes on Amita's body as she sits there in shorts and a tshirt, staring out at the lake.

"We need to talk about last night." Ian says.

Amita nods, not turning to look at him.

"Why?" Ian asks.

Amita shrugs. "Curiosity. More feeling, or I guess, feelings I used to be scared of."

"Did it work?"

Amita smiles. "It hurts to move, and every moment of it reminds me of where we are. I've never felt so connected to anything in my life, so comfortable in my own skin."

"Do you want that again?" Ian cautiously asks, afraid of the answer.

"Maybe not in the same way. On my back tonight?" She asks.

Ian nods. "Sure, if you'll let me. And what happens after that?"

"I guess we'll see when we get there, wont we?"

"More adventures, no doubt."

Amita grins, scooting up to sit next to him. "More adventures."


	7. Chapter 7

They fly to Arizona next, and Ian has their luggage shipped over so that it gets there even before they do.

The gate agent comments that they sure look like some beat up backpackers and must be ready to get home. Amita cries on the flight, staring at the window so as to not be seen.

"We couldn't stay forever." Ian consoles her with.

"Why?" She asks.

"Because the adventure, much like our permit, was destined to wear off." Ian answers.

"Where are we going now?"

"To stay with a friend of mine. He has a shooting range and offered us around the clock access. I'd like to teach you what I do, if you'll let me."

Amita smiles. "It seems you've already decided what the next adventure is, Ian. I'll follow."

–

They spend three weeks in Arizona before Amita decides the heat is too much, wakes Ian up one morning, and declares she wants to ride the train through Europe.

"You're making the plans now, are you?" Ian asks, still in his own bed.

Amita shrugs and grins at him. "I told you, confidence was only a month or two away. It sounds like a great adventure."

They drive up to Flagstaff, stopping in Sedona so Amita can run around in the creeks and take pictures to prove she's been there, and take the train 32 hours up from Flagstaff to Chicago. They spend the night in a hostel in Chicago, and Amita takes him out to Alinea and doesn't let him pay even when his eyes go wide at the prices.

The next evening, they take the train 17 hours up to DC.

Amita shows him all sorts of places someone who wasn't a local wouldn't know about, and Ian doesn't ask.

They take the Acela express up to New York City, and fly into Madrid.

They buy a month's all-country train pass, and go to see the Goya at the museum in Seville, the beaches in Barcelona, the islands off of Marseille, The Marriage of the Virgin in in Milan, and an old friend of Amita's in Frankfurt. Amita refuses to stop in Paris, saying that she's been there before and was never properly deluded by other's love of the city, or its so-called romance.

Ian follows her to Amsterdam, where they spend two days bicycling themselves into exhaustion, and then through half a dozen museums in Berlin, and then back to Frankfurt through Koln, where they spend the week recovering and exploring the city and living off of Amita's friend's pull-out couch.

Amita takes him out to a quiet French restaurant with far more suits than tourists, and Ian chooses to assume that her friend told her about it. She orders for the both of them before speaking to him.

"I know what I'm doing once summer ends, and I hope you'll think about it before you blow up on me." Amita says.

Ian fidgets in his seat. "What is it?"

"I got a job offer as a DoD civilian in Afghanistan. I'm going to take it." Amita breathes out.

Ian's jaw drops slightly. "Is there any way I can talk you out of it?"

Amita shakes her head, leaning to the side to whisper in his ear. "I get paid time off six times a year. I'll fly you up to Manama and show you how it feels to fly into the dark ocean. I'll take you to Kuwait and indulge you. And when next summer comes, I'll come home and you'll take me hiking and adventuring all summer because you don't want anything but this, because you'll never want to find a woman to settle down with or to tie you down. I need this, Ian, to find my own life. You need to go back to your own life. In a few months, I'll see you again, and we'll have more adventures."

Ian holds her head there, fighting through a haze of sadness at the thought of losing his friend for several months at a time, of her being in danger. "You're my best friend, Amita. Don't you dare get in the way of all the things I could plan for next summer."

Amita shakes her head, and she's smiling even though she can't help but be a little sad. "I wont make that mistake again."


End file.
